Papuan Children, Catholic Missionaries, and the Formation of Transimperial Networks in Late Nineteenth-Century Europe

Reichgelt, Marleen; Jensz, Felicity

Abstract

In 1890, the French Catholic Bishop Louis Couppé took Tolika to Kagai and Auguste to Kadalama from a mission station on German New Guinea on a tour to Europe. Within a year, these Papuan children—known by their European names Louis and Auguste—met the Pope in Rome, met members of the German imperial government in Berlin, spoke with influential anthropologists, church officials, and the general public in several North-West European countries. This article examines the children’s function in the circulation of missionary ideals of empire, colonial practices of governance, and notions of imperial belonging across national and imperial borders. We argue that children were central in the formation and coalescence of transimperial networks, but have been hitherto overlooked in historical studies. As children were considered not yet fully formed, various ideals of imperial subjecthood could be projected on to them that appealed to diverse nationalities and ideologies.